Kapunda

Heading to KAPUNDA from the Barossa, the landscape changes as vineyards are replaced by crops and grazing sheep. The discovery of copper here (and in Burra) in the 1840s put the region at the vanguard of Australia’s mining boom, attracting huge numbers of Cornish miners; today as you come into town, you’re greeted by a colossal sculpture of a Cornish miner entitled Map Kernow, “Son of Cornwall”. However, the boom ended as suddenly as it began, as resources were exhausted – mining finished at Kapunda in 1878.

A place that once had its own daily newspaper, eleven hotels and a busy train station is now a rural service town, pleasantly undeveloped and with many old buildings decorated with locally designed and manufactured iron lacework, as well as the ruins of the mine.